His power is familiar, tugging on some hidden recess of her mind. A nagging voice begs her to remember where she had felt it before. It feels like a half-forgotten dream. The murky tendrils of a distant memory dance over her skin.
It had enveloped her in flames that smelt of Finn. Musk and sunshine and power.
Her heart races at the memory. The male lying on the other side of the camp they had set up in the wake of the tower's destruction looks the same. His golden hair is mussed. Black goo stains his clothes, but there is a hidden fire in his eyes she had overlooked before.
Hinting at the power buried within him.
The evening had passed silently. Both had eaten their rations without sharing more than a few words. Her question still hangs heavy between them asmistbirdscall to each other in the trees above.
Sparkling stars peek from between the branches. A hint of glowing blue moon shines onto the grass.
What he accomplished in this clearing is the miracle she's been searching for. If only he is willing?—
"I told you before I was found by Gree,” Finn says, breaking the heavy silence. “Wandering as a child between the ships after being ousted from the brothel that had raised me as a baby."
Finn's voice is rougher than it had been when he snagged her wrist.
The Fairy Queen can still feel his fingers on her. The tentative touch of his thumb on her skin burns as much as the memory of his hungry gaze. It is fortunate he is strong enough to keep away, for it is becoming increasingly more difficult for her own desires to stay unshared.
If things were different, like he had said.
If she were not Queen, and he were not a human, a changeling, or whatever he was. If their time together was not drawing to an end. If they could avoid death and save her realm, perhaps there would be a chance for them. A real possibility for more.
It was not to be. To pretend otherwise would be foolish.
"The power—the magic—first manifested when I was six. The flames burned through half of his dock before his crew got it under control." Finn shakes himself. "Gree told me to conceal such power. I would be in danger if anyone found out. Hunted for it—exploited for it. Back then, he had called it a gift, but I always knew what it was. Acurse."
He spits the word between them, and the Fairy Queen tries not to recoil.
"I've pushed it down every day since then. It gnaws inside me, begging to be freed—to be unleashed. I know what that creature is capable of. It would destroy everything given the chance. Over the years, it has strengthened, becoming harder and harder to control."
Lifting up from the ground, the Fairy Queen wraps her arms around her knees and tucks them to her chest. Finn is only a few feet away, and yet he might as well be back in Glimmerveil.
The distance between them feels unnatural.
"It is your fairy magic," she whispers. "Yield to it."
It is the wrong thing to say. She knows it instantly as he lurches upwards. Eyes like blue flames snap at her. His fingers spear into the ground at his sides.
"No," he snarls. "All I've ever wanted is to be human. To be like everyone else. I loathe being different, of having thisthingslithering inside me. It repulses me to feel it racing in my veins, spurring me to become something I'm not."
Something like me, the Fairy Queen thinks.
Finn huffs through his nose. Shaking his head, golden hair clings to his ears.
"As enchanting as you are, Queenie, I have no desire to become a fairy. It's why I risked everything to come through the portal. Why I’m on his deadly mission. I'll do anything to be rid of this curse."
Curse. Curse. Curse.
The word pounds against her skull.
The Finn who teases her with promises of kisses. The one who touches her shoulder with his as they walk is gone.
His actions say one thing while his words reveal another. This is how he sees her kind—she's her. A curse. A punishment. The idea of being like her repulses him.
Does she sicken him?
Despite what he said, were his words merely for his own amusement?
